Within the plainest ritual
comes invisible knowing.
Hands filling the kettle,
knees bending to feed the fire,
awaken ancestors in me.
I am their will and patience.
I am their despair.
They stay while the water boils,
the fire crackles.
I want to pull from my core
their hunger and loss,
swaddle it in a cloth
made of this life’s bounty,
croon songs in every tongue
they ever spoke.
Surely then I’ll feel in my cells
their crouched forms unfold,
their burdens fall away.
I stretch, pour,
lift my tea.
Only then do I hear them
speak inside my spine,
shackles are keys,
pain light.
Through the moment’s bright portal
I see those who came before me
dance with those who come after,
their joy so astonishing
it steeps in me still.
